Genesis 2:3

Genesis 2:1 looks back over the whole account of Genesis 1, from light on the first day to man and woman on the sixth, and draws a line under it. “Thus” gathers up everything told there. Each part came into being as God said it should, and at the close of the sixth day “God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good” (Genesis 1:31). Now the whole of it is finished, a world ready to be lived in and cared for.

The verb is kâlâh, which means to end, to cease, to be finished or to complete. It comes back in the next verse as “ended”, so both verses speak of the same thing: God brought his work to its end. The world was whole and ready for what God meant to do in it next.

“The heavens and the earth” names the two great parts of creation, and together they stand for all of it. The word for heavens, shâmayim, is plural in form and covers the sky and everything above it, where the sun, moon and stars are set. The word for earth, ʼerets, comes from a root meaning to be firm, and it takes in the land, the seas and all that lives on them.

“All the host of them” adds everything that fills those two realms. The word tsâbâʼ means an army or host, and it is the word in God’s title “the LORD of hosts”. The picture is of a vast multitude in good order: the stars of the sky, and every creature, plant and thing on the earth, each in the place God gave it. The world God made is ordered and full of purpose, and every part of it answers to his design.

“And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made” uses kâlâh again. The seventh day is mentioned twice in this verse, and so is “his work which he had made”, which presses home two things: this day stands apart from the six days of making, and the whole of God’s work is in view. The word for work, mᵉlâʼkâh, is a common word for work or employment, and it can also mean what work produces. Here it covers every part of God’s making.

The word for rested is shâbath, which means to cease, to desist or to rest, and it is the root of the word Sabbath. God ceased from the work of creating because the work was done. He had already looked at all of it and called it very good, so his rest is the rest of a Maker whose work is complete and who is satisfied with what he has made.

Verse 3 names two acts of God. To bless, bârak, comes from a root meaning to kneel. People bless God in worship, and God blesses people by doing them good. Here God blesses a day, giving his favour to a stretch of time and making the seventh day a source of good for his creation.

To sanctify, qâdash, means to make or pronounce clean, to set apart as holy, to consecrate. By sanctifying the seventh day God set it apart from the other six as his own, for his purposes. Blessing gives the day God’s favour, and sanctifying marks it as holy, and together they give it a place of its own among the days. God rules over time, and he alone makes a day holy.

The reason follows: “because that in it he had rested from all his work”. God’s own rest is the ground of the blessing, so the day is holy because of what God did on it. From the first week, then, a rhythm of rest after finished work is part of creation. The number seven often stands in Scripture for completeness, which suits the day on which God’s work stood complete.

“Which God created and made” sums up the whole. The two verbs, bara (“created”) and asah (“made”), together take in all of God’s work, both the bringing into being of what had never been and the shaping and forming of what he had made, from the vast heavens to the smallest living thing.

This verse comes long before Sinai, and it is the ground of the Sabbath commandment given there. In the Ten Commandments of Exodus 20, God tells Israel, “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy”, and he gives this very week as the reason: “For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it” (Exodus 20:8–11). Israel’s weekly rest was rooted in God’s own work and rest, and it set Israel apart from the nations.

Because the pattern belongs to creation, it concerns everyone made in God’s image. Jesus said, “The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath” (Mark 2:27). God gave the day for the good of the people he made, and it shows his kind care for them.

These three verses close the account of the creation week that began in Genesis 1:1. From here Genesis 2 turns to tell in more detail how the man and the woman were made and placed in the garden of Eden (Genesis 2:4–25).

God’s finished work of creation looks ahead to another finished work. The one by whom all things were created (Colossians 1:16) is the one who said on the cross, “It is finished” (John 19:30). By his death and resurrection Christ completed the work of redemption, and now “if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17). The Creator who brought the first creation to its end brings the new creation to its completion too.

Jesus is “Lord also of the sabbath” (Mark 2:28), and he gives the rest the seventh day pointed to: “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). It is rest from the burden of sin and from striving to earn righteousness by our own works, and he adds that his yoke is easy and his burden light (Matthew 11:28–30).

Hebrews 4 takes up God’s rest on the seventh day and speaks of it to us: “There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his” (Hebrews 4:9–10). The whole passage urges God’s people to enter that rest by faith (Hebrews 4:1–11). The rest that “remaineth” (Hebrews 4:9) is ours by trusting in Christ’s finished work, as God rested from his.

God finishes what he begins. The world he made was complete and very good, and the salvation Christ won on the cross is just as complete. You can trust him with your life and with the whole course of history, because his plans are thorough and good, and he brings them to their end.

The seventh day also shows that work has its bounds by God’s own design. God set an end to his work and rested, and he blessed a day of rest for the people he made. Your worth in his sight rests on his love, apart from all you produce, so setting time aside for worship and rest is a way of trusting his provision. When your work is done, you can stop, thank him for what he has given, and enjoy it with his people. Above all, you can rest in Christ’s finished work, ceasing from the effort to earn what he has already accomplished, and look forward to the rest that remains for the people of God.